Chix Verbil was a Sprite who thought he was the gods gift to women, unfortunately for all the fairies he hit on, he wasn't. He often flirted with Holly and she dismissed him every time. Maybe he should move on to somebody else. That girl he'd seen tonight was awfully cute.
"Hey, does anybody know a blonde who came in here tonight?" asked Chix.
"A blonde? I haven't seen any girls," said one of the elves in the room.
"Me neither. Where is she?"
"I don't know. She was near the Ops room. A cute thing. Can you believe she didn't want to go out with me?"
The men all laughed. "Who'd ever believe that?" It was well known that nobody wanted to date Chix.
"Yeah, but the way she told me off kinda reminded me of Holly."
Trouble came in. "What about Holly?"
"No. This girl turned down my generous offer for a date tonight and the way she talked kinda reminded me of Holly."
"That's ridiculous."
"Why you say that?"
"What'd she look like?"
"Blonde, long hair, pretty young, in this little outfit."
"That sounds nothing like Holly," said Trouble, heartily.
"Yeah. Short wouldn't be caught dead wearing something like that," said one of the other men.
"I know, but I swear, something about her was awfully familiar."
"Probably just your imagination."
"Still."
Trouble was now thoroughly irratated. "Look, Holly wouldn't wear anything like that anymore than Root would.go and get a tattoo! It wasn't Holly. Trust me."
"How do you know?"
"It's her night off. Besides, I saw the blonde near the Ops Room too. It wasn't her."
Trouble was very grateful when somebody changed the subject. * * * * * * * * * *
Holly and Root stepped out of the vehicle and saw Mulch waiting where he'd said he'd be.
"Good, you're here, Kerri, James."
"You got the stuff?"
"Yeah. Did you bring the gold?"
"Yeah." Holly took some gold out of her purse.

She handed it to him.
"This is only half." Mulch frowned.
"You'll get the other half when we get our DVDs."
"Alright." He walked a little bit away and began digging. After about a minute he came back with the stuff. "Here." He dumped all of it in her arms. "The gold?"
"Just a minute," said Holly.
Root walked over behind Mulch and grabbed both his wrists. "You're under arrest convict," he growled.
Holly took the cuffs out of her purse and slapped them on Mulch. She went back to using her regular voice, "Did you really think we weren't going to find you?"
Mulch's eyes nearly left the sockets. "HOLLY? Is that you?"
"Yeah. It's me. And Root's standing behind you."
"Julius, you don't look anything like yourself."
"Knock it off convict. You're taking a little trip to the surface with us." * * * * * * * * * * * * *
The trip to the surface was uneventful. Holly flew the shuttle and Root kept threatening Mulch and describing a nice cell and some goblins for roommates. Goblins and dwarfs were the worst of enemies.
Once on the surface, the made their way to St. Bartleby's. They used a pay phone to call the school and say that Artemis's cousins Holly and Julius wouldn't be waiting just outside the school to speak with him. They mentioned that it was urgent. They'd only been outside the school a matter of minutes when Fowl showed up.
"Captain Short? Commander Root? I assume it was you who left the message for me."
Root and Holly unshielded. Mulch was between them, still handcuffed.
"Ah. You've brought him."
"Yes. We keep our word."
He looked at them more clearly. "Captain? Commander? You don't look at all like yourselves, though I must admit anytime I've seen you you've been in your uniforms."
"We had to work undercover tonight. And Foaly provided us with these masks."
"Fowl, call Butler. We need to go somewhere private."
Butler reached the school within twenty minutes and took them to a deserted parking lot near Tara (they'd left the shuttle at Tara).